Event

The Physics Department collaborates with CARINA (Caribbean Institute of Astronomy) to present a public lecture on the “Search for DNA based life on planets around other stars,” delivered by Professor Mauri Valtonen, University of Helsinki, Finland. This lecture is carded for this Thursday 19^th January, 2012, at 5.30 pm, at the Faculty of Engineering, Lecture theatre 2.

In this lecture, Professor Valtonen will describe how elementary life forms can travel from planet to planet and between different planetary systems. There has been a search for potential sites of DNA based life, originating from the Earth, among stars. The likely targets for further study are two stars which are believed to have been born approximately five billion years ago, together with the Sun, in the same star cluster and are still relatively close to us. This work has been carried out in collaboration with Aleksandr Myllari in Finland and his Russian colleagues.

To find out more, please e-mail shirin.haque@sta.uwi.edu.